Philosateleian Post Eel River FDC survives trip through mail almost completely unscathed
The release of Philosateleian Post’s new Eel River stamp is a few weeks in the past now, but I wanted to quickly share a scan of the first day cover that I mailed to myself.
Philosateleia 1s Eel River, Massachusetts, first day cover
As you can see, I used my mailer’s postmark permit to cancel the United States stamp. And for once, one of my FDCs made it through the mail with only the tiniest of scrapes near the right edge of my local post stamp. It’s not at all unusual for the mail processing equipment to shave a chunk off the surface of one of my stamps, so I’d say this one made it through relatively unscathed.
Shriners Children’s Hospitals use new Christmas-themed preprinted designs on BRE
My daughter and I made our regular weekly trip to check our post office box today, and there was the usual pile of nonprofit solicitations. Typical stuff for the most part, but there was one mailing from Shriners Children’s Hospitals that included a new business reply envelope.
Shriners Children’s business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
The preprinted stamp-sized images on this BRE picture a snowman with a bird on its hand, a gingerbread house with candy cane roof, and a deer with stylized evergreens.
The art style used for the images is very much like that used for three other designs on a different envelope I received in August. I suppose you could say they’re from the same “issue”!
Operation Smile, Covenant House distribute new Christmas-themed BREs
Shriners Children’s Hospitals in August kicked off this year’s Christmas-themed business reply envelopes with a BRE featuring three stamp-sized designs printed on it, but last week’s check of my post office box turned up examples from a couple of other nonprofits.
The first came from Operation Smile. This bright yellow envelope has designs picturing a penguin wearing a winter cap and draped with strings of Christmas lights; the word “Hope”; and a Christmas tree.
Operation Smile business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
The second envelope is from Covenant House. It’s a bit larger than average, and I suppose because of the extra space has five designs: a Christmas tree captioned “Joy”; Madonna and Child captioned “Love”; Santa Claus captioned “Believe”; A child and lamb captioned “Faith”; and children captioned “Hope”.
Covenant House business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
As I’ve written before, these aren’t stamps, and there’s probably little place for this sort of material in a typical stamp collection, but I have to admit these envelopes add some color to my incoming junk mail!
Local posts in New Hampshire, Minnesota, & Oregon release new stamps
The local post scene had, to the best of my knowledge, been pretty quiet overall over the past couple of months, but within the past week and a half, I’ve received new issues from three different sources!
The first came from New Hampshire’s Purgatory Post, which on September 19 issued a 14-sola stamp commemorating Pope Leo XIV. Robert Provost was elected pope in May; the Chicago native became the first pope born in the United States.
Purgatory Post Pope Leo XIV stamp
Coincidentally, Minnesota-based Como Park Post issued a new stamp on the same day as Purgatory Post’s latest stamp was released. The 3¢ stamp was printed from a handcarved wooden die.
Como Park Post 3¢ stamp
And just last Wednesday, September 24, Mick’s Local Post in Oregon issued a stamp picturing the Coins-Donuts sign in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which points customers in the direction of Santa Fe Coins & Jewelry and Whoo’s Donuts, respectively. A release enclosed with the stamp I received identifies the sign as a “beloved icon” and “cultural treasure.”
Adanaland releases miniature sheet celebrating Festival of Ornament
When my daughter and I went to check our post office box last week, there were a couple of pieces of “stamp mail,” one of which came from Adanaland’s Alan B. Alan sent along his latest philatelic creation, a miniature sheet of nine stamps celebrating the Adanaland Festival of Ornament.
Adanaland Festival of Ornament miniature sheet
Alan writes that he acquired a box of letterpress type ornaments some time back and decided they would be useful for creating stamps for a fictitious event.
As you can see, although the same symbols are used repeatedly, each stamp in the sheet is unique. It’s an interesting arrangement, and an interesting end product!
